Coffey’s DWP watered down key parts of plan to prevent suicides
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) watered down key parts of a plan drawn up to prevent suicides and learn lessons from claimant deaths, while under the leadership of deputy prime minister Therese Coffey, Disability News Service (DNS) can reveal.
During Coffey’s three-year regime at the head of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), a series of decisions were taken to weaken the plan, which was supposed to cut the number of claimant deaths, improve support for “the most vulnerable” and provide a “more compassionate” culture within the department.
The plan aimed to help create an environment where DWP’s services were “safe” and assist in “avoiding harm” to benefit claimants “as they interact with our services”.
But DNS has so far confirmed at least six ways in which the DWP Excellence Plan was watered down under Coffey’s leadership, after the department had already secured funding for the plan from the Treasury through her predecessor, Amber Rudd.
Throughout Coffey’s period in charge of DWP, from September 2019 to September 2022, disabled people continued to die due to her department’s failings.
Among them was Sophia Yuferev, a talented artist who lived with significant mental distress and had been living on a sandwich a day for the last few months of her life, after both her employment and support allowance and her personal independence payment had been stopped by Coffey’s department. She is believed to have died in October 2021.
Another was Philip Pakree, who died on Boxing Day 2020, and whose partner had warned that he was too ill to undergo an upcoming benefit assessment that had left him “distraught” and “devastated”.
And today, DNS reveals how DWP has admitted repeatedly breaching the Equality Act, after a disabled man was left needing hospital treatment three times for suicidal thoughts caused by months of failures by DWP advisers and jobcentres, following a new claim for universal credit claim he registered in February 2020 (see separate story).
DWP’s own figures show the department started 133 secret internal process reviews (IPRs) into links between its actions and deaths and serious harm caused to benefit claimants, between July 2020 and June 2022.
Coffey took over as work and pensions secretary on 8 September 2019, just four days after her predecessor, Amber Rudd, had secured £106 million for the new DWP Excellence Plan.
One-third of that money – £36 million – was allocated to improving safety, support for “customers with complex needs” and decision-making, and learning from its mistakes.
An internal DWP document drawn up several months later – obtained by a campaigner under the Freedom of Information Act – appears to show how Rudd had intended to deliver the plan.
But subsequent information secured by DNS through freedom of information requests shows how that plan was watered down during the three years that Coffey was in charge at DWP, before she was promoted last month to be health and social care secretary and deputy prime minister under prime minister Liz Truss.
Among the decisions taken under Coffey’s leadership of DWP was to abandon plans to pilot a scheme – SignpostingPlus – that would have tested ways of supporting claimants who were “beginning to struggle to cope, before they become harder to help through entrenched disadvantage”.
DWP has told DNS that it holds no information about SignpostingPlus, blaming the pandemic for the decision to abandon the project.
The DWP Excellence Plan also intended to “reduce the impact of serious cases (including customer suicide)” and measure how successful the department was in reducing the number of serious cases.
But the department told DNS that it does not hold information about how successful it was in reducing serious cases because a “measure was not chosen”.
The plan also described how a new “Safeguarding Improvement Team” would “proactively introduce processes, procedures and policies to protect vulnerable customers and improve the effectiveness of DWP interventions”.
But the department told DNS, three years on: “No information is held about a Team named the Safeguarding Improvement Team.”
Another key part of the DWP Excellence Plan was to introduce a Serious Case Panel, “with independent membership”.
But DWP, under Coffey’s leadership, decided to water down that proposal, ensuring that the panel was filled instead with senior DWP executives, a move which has previously been reported on.
The plan also laid out a series of potential critical success factors (CSFs), which would determine whether the department had achieved its goal to make its services less harmful and less likely to lead to claimant suicides and other deaths.
One part of the plan was to provide extra time for staff to respond to signs of “customer vulnerability”, refer them to specialist support, and prevent “an escalation of vulnerability and risk to customer welfare”.
One of the “benefits” of this would be “increased effective suicide/harm prevention”, according to the plan.
A potential CSF would have measured how many such conversations were carried out, and how many claimants were referred for “complex needs” support.
But DWP told DNS, in a freedom of information response: “No information is held for these two questions on complex needs conversations.”
Under another part of the plan, the department introduced “decision assurance calls”, which are supposed to enable staff making decisions on benefit claims to seek out and clarify further information about a claim and “provide support to customers to transition to other benefits”.
One potential CSF would have shown how many customers received a decision assurance call, but DWP has told DNS that it would be too expensive to find out how many such calls had been made because “the requested data is not held centrally”.
Sir Stephen Timms, the Labour MP and chair of the Commons work and pensions committee, said the information obtained by DNS was a “significant finding”.
He said: “I am concerned that earlier safeguarding proposals appear to have been weakened.”
He added: “The previous secretary of state assured us she was committed to ensuring the safety of the often vulnerable people her department is there to support.
“DWP needs to be open about steps it is taking to improve safeguarding in the benefits system, through the Excellence Plan or by other means.
“The committee will ask the new secretary of state about progress when she comes to us later this year.”
A Disabled People Against Cuts spokesperson said the original plan had appeared to be “a serious attempt to put right some of the worst parts of DWP processes” which “would have saved lives, misery and hardship for millions of disabled people”.
But he added: “It’s a desperate crying shame that Coffey took a hammer to it.
“Will these people ever get some humanity and compassion?”
John McArdle, co-founder of the grassroots group Black Triangle, said he was “quite shocked, in a good way” that Rudd had sourced the funding for the plan.
He said: “It shows that she had been listening.”
But he said that Coffey had “caused a catastrophe for sick and disabled people at the DWP and now she has moved to the Department of Health and Social Care, which is going to be equally catastrophic, if not more so”.
Labour’s Debbie Abrahams, who has played a key role in drawing attention to deaths linked to DWP in parliament and is a member of the work and pensions committee, said Coffey was “frequently questioned” by the committee on the deaths of social security claimants and the causes of these deaths.
She said: “Any failings in the current social security system which let down the most vulnerable claimants need investigating.”
Coffey had not responded to a request to comment by noon today (Thursday).
In its response, DWP did not dispute any of the six ways in which the plan had been watered down under Coffey’s leadership.
But a DWP spokesperson said: “We support millions of people each year and we are constantly reviewing our processes to deliver a supportive and compassionate service.
“COVID-19 impacted how we intended to implement the DWP Excellence Plan as we had to address the immediate needs of customers impacted by the pandemic.
“Since February 2020 we have delivered improvements to our service, including broadening the range of circumstances where an IPR is carried out and expanding the IPR team.
“We also continue to learn from serious cases, working to ensure our most vulnerable customers are receiving the best possible service.”
The department has also highlighted the £3 million a year it is spending to grow its team of advanced customer support senior leaders, who build relationships with organisations that support claimants in the most vulnerable situations; its introduction of a mental health training package for all customer-facing staff; and its work to improve relevant guidance and training for staff on dealing with claimants who declare their intention to self-harm.
It said it had no duty under the Freedom of Information Act to provide background or context to the information it provided in response to freedom of information requests.
20 October 2022
Government ‘has made no proper blackout plans’ for disabled people
Government departments and power companies have been unable to show any detailed preparations they have made to protect people who need electricity to run lifesaving medical equipment in their homes, and which could be affected by blackouts this winter.
Neither the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) nor the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) have been able to point this week to any preparations they have made for possible three-hour blackouts this winter.
In a repeat of the early weeks of the pandemic, the government appears to have failed again to take measures to protect disabled people at a time of national emergency.
Its apparent failure came as disabled people told Disability News Service (DNS) of their concerns about the impact of possible blackouts.
DNS has been trying since last Friday to find out what plans are being made to ensure disabled people who rely on equipment such as ventilators and home dialysis machines, or fridges for insulin, can keep running them if their power goes out for long periods.
DNS first approached each of the six distribution network operators (DNOs)* whose responsibility it is to ensure customers dependent on medical equipment are protected during blackouts.
These companies referred DNS to their industry body, the Energy Networks Association (ENA).
But ENA said only that the six networks would “make every effort” to support disabled customers and those with long-term health conditions who were signed up to their Priority Services Registers by warning them when their power was about to be cut off and “signposting” them to support.
ENA also said that customers who require a continuous supply of electricity for medical reasons during a power cut should “seek advice from their local health service provider”.
Its website says such customers “often have backup power sources to keep vital equipment powered for several hours during a power failure”.
The regulator Ofgem says on its website that DNOs “could provide heating and cooking facilities” to those on the register if their power is cut.
When asked for further details of what support their “local health service provider” might be able to offer, and how confident it was that its members would be able to protect all disabled customers in the event of widespread blackouts, ENA referred DNS to BEIS.
DNS contacted both BEIS and DHSC.
DHSC initially failed to respond, but later referred DNS to BEIS.
BEIS also initially failed to respond, but two days later a spokesperson released a statement that provided no details of any plans to protect disabled people who rely on medical or independent living equipment.
In background information provided to DNS, BEIS pointed to membership of the Priority Services Register, even though all this is likely to offer in the event of a blackout is to warn those signed up of an impending blackout, provide heating and cooking facilities to some customers – although it is not clear how many this could be offered to – and signpost customers in vulnerable situations to support.
One power company this week suggested that this signposting would include being referred to the Red Cross for “hot meals and drinks”.
The BEIS background information also stated that those who need a continuous supply of electricity for medical reasons should seek advice from their local health service provider, the same advice provided by ENA.
And BEIS appeared to suggest that most customers who rely on medical equipment in their homes would have backup power sources to keep that equipment functioning during a power failure.
BEIS declined to say how confident it was that it would be able to protect all those disabled customers who need electricity to run life-saving equipment in the event of large-scale blackouts this winter.
Instead, in a statement, a BEIS spokesperson said: “The Priority Services Register is a free support service to ensure vulnerable domestic energy consumers and those with special requirements have access to additional support in the event of a supply disruption.
“The UK has a secure and diverse energy system. We are confident in our plans to protect households and businesses, including vulnerable households, in the full range of scenarios this winter, in light of Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.
“We continue to work closely with Ofgem and National Grid to prepare for the upcoming winter.”
The disabled Liberal Democrat peer Baroness [Sal] Brinton has told DNS she will be hoping to force the government to act through an amendment to the energy prices bill.
She said: “I’m laying this amendment because it has become clear to me that neither ministers nor the energy suppliers have proper plans to provide emergency support for those disabled and severely ill people who rely on energy supplies to power their life-saving equipment, in the event of large and prolonged power cuts.”
She said she was “frustrated but perhaps not surprised to discover the lack of planning” as “once again disabled people are being forgotten”.
Meanwhile, disabled people have told DNS of their reliance on powered equipment in their homes, and their concerns at the lack of preparations for possible winter blackouts.
Michael, from Surrey, will probably not have the option to leave his home to keep warm if there is a power-cut as he is housebound if he does not have assistance.
He also needs electricity for his stairlift to go downstairs for food or upstairs to use the bathroom.
He needs electricity for a machine to maintain consistent breathing when he is sleeping, and his stock of insulin needs to be kept in the fridge.
Michael, who is 57, nearly died in the pandemic after spending four weeks in hospital with Covid in the first wave of the virus, which has left his lungs and body “fragile”.
He said: “My main concern is lack of heating should the temperature drop. This could be life threatening to me, I believe.
“I am home alone the majority of the time. The combination of the cold, diabetes, ME and morphine-induced drowsiness could be fatal.”
Dave Wood, from Mansfield, said he needed electricity to charge his electric wheelchair, to power his riser-recliner chair, and for his fridge, where he keeps medication that costs the NHS £2,500 per injection.
He also needs electricity to run his gas central heating, which is vital because he has a heart condition and cannot regulate his body temperature well, while he also has osteoarthritis.
He is on the Priority Services Register, but he said: “I haven’t had any communications from my energy supplier about how I as a vulnerable customer would be affected or what I should be doing if (when) the blackouts happen.”
He said he did not believe there were enough generators in the UK for those who would need them in a blackout, which he believes could be hundreds of thousands of homes.
He said: “There is no way they will have the engineers ready to supply, fit, test and maintain them all.”
He is trying to prepare for potential blackouts by spending hundreds of pounds on equipment such as phone-charging power banks, thermos flasks, draft excluders, torches, good quality candles, and food and snacks, as he does not have confidence in the preparations being made by the energy companies and the government.
He said: “Our plan is to shut ourselves in a single room and make sure we try to keep the door closed as much as possible to retain the heat.”
*SP Energy Networks, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, Northern Powergrid, Electricity Northwest, UK Power Networks and National Grid
20 October 2022
DWP admits court defeat after universal credit discrimination led to suicide thoughts
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has admitted repeatedly breaching the Equality Act, after a disabled man was left needing hospital treatment three times for suicidal thoughts caused by months of failures by universal credit advisers and jobcentres.
A legal document describes how George*, from east London, has been failed on scores of occasions by DWP staff working on its helplines and in its jobcentres.
DWP has now admitted discriminating against him on numerous occasions.
George said he believed thousands of other disabled people were potentially facing similar treatment, and that DWP appeared to be refusing to take any action to make the universal credit system safer, more accessible and less distressing for others.
It is the latest case to be shared with Disability News Service that raises serious concerns about flaws within universal credit, and in particular its inflexibility, the anxiety caused to claimants with a history of mental distress, the lack of support for claimants in vulnerable situations, and the hostility and safeguarding failures of jobcentres and helpline staff.
For more than two years, George and his carers begged DWP staff to communicate with him by phone, rather than through his online universal credit journal.
But DWP staff failed to put markers on his universal credit account to alert colleagues that he was a “vulnerable claimant” and that he needed reasonable adjustments to be made for him, after he registered a new claim in February 2020.
When he lodged his claim, he was told – wrongly – that he could only make a claim digitally, rather than by telephone.
He was only able to submit the online claim with the help of a Citizens Advice Bureau.
On numerous occasions over the following months, his requests for support were ignored or refused.
He made repeated attempts to complain about the discriminatory way he was being treated, but many of these complaints were never investigated.
DWP has now admitted liability in a county court discrimination case, and although George is seeking up to £25,000 in damages, the department is disputing the amount it should pay in compensation for its failures and the impact they have had on him.
George fears that, despite his legal victory, DWP will continue to treat other disabled people the same way.
The legal document that describes his “particulars of claim” shows how he made DWP aware from the beginning of his new claim for universal credit of his need for support.
Because of a neurological impairment, he experiences regular seizures, memory problems and “brain fog”, and has significant care needs, needing assistance with washing, dressing, eating, reading, writing, and completing paperwork.
But DWP took more than a year to put the reasonable adjustments in place that should have meant all communications with him about universal credit would be carried out by phone.
It also promised that monthly statements would be posted to him, and that his local jobcentre would call him about any actions he needed to take and complete his responses on his online journal on his behalf.
The same day this agreement was reached, a universal credit adviser posted a message and letter on his online journal, according to the particulars of claim.
Helpline and jobcentre staff continued to breach the agreement over the next year.
On at least two occasions he was given a new case manager, who then refused to accept the reasonable adjustments that had previously been agreed.
The distress caused by his treatment has led to him needing emergency treatment for suicidal thoughts on three occasions.
On numerous occasions, he has dictated a complaint over the telephone, only for DWP to fail to investigate it.
Disability News Service has counted more than 40 times over two years in which a promise made by DWP staff was then broken, often many times over, according to George’s particulars of claim.
Despite DWP finally agreeing to move him across to a telephone claim – as a result of his legal action – he said he was still being denied the reasonable adjustments he needs, and is still being asked to respond online.
George said he was “extremely concerned” by DWP’s actions.
He said: “It just shows they have not learned their lessons.
“They have conceded my case, but that doesn’t change anything for other people.
“If they are admitting they did this to me, why aren’t they looking at the system as a whole?
“I think this is happening to potentially thousands of other disabled people.
“I am quite a fighter so I have fought this in the courts, but other people will not have that fight.
“I was hoping they would change their ways.
“It appears they have conceded my case, but does that change the system overall for other people? No.
“There doesn’t seem to be any kind of remorse or action being taken to change the situation generally.
“What’s it going to take for them to make those changes?”
A DWP spokesperson said: “We cannot comment on active legal proceedings.”
*He has asked for his surname not be used
20 October 2022
One in five disabled people can’t afford essentials, survey reveals
Disabled people are being “forgotten and effectively abandoned”, forced to rely on foodbanks, and having to cut back on how much they eat, because of the cost-of-living crisis, according to new research by 15 disabled people’s organisations in Greater Manchester.
Disabled people surveyed by Greater Manchester Disabled People’s Panel* reported skipping meals, being forced to stop receiving social care support, and even having to be brought leftovers by a neighbour.
One in five (20 per cent) of the disabled people who responded to the Greater Manchester Big Disability Survey 2022 said they could not afford essential items, while another 28 per cent said they could afford essentials but nothing else.
Michele Scattergood, co-chair of the panel and chief executive of Breakthrough UK, told an online meeting yesterday that the results – based on responses from nearly 2,000 disabled people – were “shocking”.
She said: “This is poverty beyond a scale that we have ever seen, certainly in my lifetime.
“It is poverty that is hitting our communities harder than anywhere else.”
The meeting was set up so that Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, could respond to the survey and answer questions from disabled people (see separate story).
Burnham said the figure that had made the most impression on him was that 20 per cent of disabled people in Greater Manchester could not afford essential items.
He said: “If you take nothing else away from today just think about that. This is before the food inflation we are going to see has really kicked in.
“One in five disabled people in Greater Manchester can’t afford the basics to keep people fed, warm and safe.”
He added: “The current crisis is having a dramatic and detrimental effect on the lives of disabled people now, and the severity of it, of the situation, can’t be over-stated.
“People are living at great risk and that risk will only intensify as we go through the winter.”
The panel’s report says that one in four of the disabled people responding to the survey had been forced to use a food bank or rely on others to get food.
And a third of disabled people who responded could not afford to pay all their bills, with more than half of them (54 per cent) eating less as a result, and 70 per cent making less use of heat and light.
Nearly a third (29 per cent) of disabled people had not received the care and support they needed because they could not afford it.
The report’s findings are due to be published tomorrow (Friday) on the panel’s website.
The panel’s report concludes: “The cracks between services are so large and deep and people are being forgotten and effectively abandoned.”
The report calls for wide-ranging action on the cost-of-living crisis, social care, housing, accessible transport, mainstream education, and other areas.
One of the disabled people who responded to the survey said: “My neighbour brings me leftovers sometimes.”
Another described how they “skip meals… half every portion… live very minimally, I never go shopping for anything other than bits of food.”
A third disabled person said: “I had a PA for 20 hours a week, to help me wash, dress and prepare meals.
“They wanted more in contributions from me, than her weekly wage, and I couldn’t afford it at all!
“So now I injure myself and am exhausted because I have no help.”
Nearly three-fifths (58 per cent) of the disabled people who responded to the survey said they believed central government was harming or neglecting them, an increase of 10 percentage points since the panel’s last survey in 2020.
And nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) said they were worried about their housing situation, double the proportion who said that two years ago when the panel’s last survey was carried out.
Among the panel’s recommendations are for the mayor and local authorities to provide targeted support for disabled people.
It also calls for emergency upratings of benefits; improved advice and advocacy; an end to all charging for social care; action from the energy regulator Ofgem on disabled people’s energy bills; a rent freeze; and for local authorities and the NHS to adopt a rights-based approach.
*The panel is convened by Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People in partnership with Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Members of the panel include Manchester Disabled People Against Cuts, Breakthrough UK, Salford Disability Forum, and Manchester People First
20 October 2022
Burnham praises disabled people’s panel after it exposes severity of cost-of-living crisis
Greater Manchester’s mayor has praised the work of disabled people’s organisations that has exposed the “severity” of the cost-of-living crisis, even before the onset of winter.
The survey by Greater Manchester Disabled People’s Panel* found one in five disabled people could not afford essential items, while another 28 per cent said they could afford essentials but nothing else (see separate story).
And one in four of the disabled people responding to the survey said they had been forced to use a food bank or rely on others to secure food.
Labour’s Andy Burnham told an online meeting organised by the panel yesterday (Wednesday) that the results of the survey should be put before every MP and minister before final decisions are made on the government’s 31 October budget.
He said: “No decisions should be made until [the survey report] has been fully absorbed at a Westminster and Whitehall level because this is the picture that needs to guide all of those decisions.”
The survey findings are due to be published tomorrow (Friday) on the panel’s website.
Burnham said the threat of further government cuts to public spending and public services was “downright dangerous”.
He said: “To contemplate major reductions in the support available to people at this time will leave people, I would say, at severe risk.
“It will even put lives at risk in the coming period.”
He called on the government to raise taxes before considering further reductions in public spending.
He said there was “nothing left to cut, actually, other than people’s hope, people’s support, and in the end risking people’s lives. It’s that severe.”
And he said there needed to be a “fight back” against the idea that there was going to be “austerity mark two”.
Burnham said the figure from the survey that had made the most impression on him was that 20 per cent of disabled people who responded said they could not afford essential items.
He said: “If you take nothing else away from today just think about that. This is before the food inflation we are going to see has really kicked in.
“One in five disabled people in Greater Manchester can’t afford the basics to keep people fed, warm and safe.”
He said that every one of the 10 local authorities in Greater Manchester was planning to introduce “warm banks” – safe and warm places where people can visit if they cannot afford to heat their homes – this winter.
The mayor praised the panel for “changing the debate in Greater Manchester” and for “bringing the voice of disabled people into that debate”.
Burnham, who set up the panel shortly before the pandemic, with the support of the leaders of the 10 local authorities, said: “The impact you have had has been huge and we are really proud of you as members of the panel.”
*The panel is convened by Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People in partnership with Burnham and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Members of the panel include Disability Stockport, Stand Up Sisters, Manchester Deaf Centre, People First Tameside and Embrace Wigan and Leigh
20 October 2022
First minister pays tribute to 50 years of Disability Wales… and makes social model pledge
The Welsh first minister has paid tribute to the work of Disability Wales as it celebrated its 50th anniversary yesterday (Wednesday), and he re-affirmed his government’s commitment to putting the social model of disability at the heart of its work.
Disability Wales (DW) is working with the Welsh government on a “ground-breaking” project to try to embed the social model in all its policies.
Disabled broadcaster, consultant and campaigner Mik Scarlet, which is also working on the scheme, told the conference that the project to embed the social model in every area of the Welsh government’s work was “ground-breaking”.
He said the work was a “historic moment in the battle for disability equality and rights” and that a key message of the project was “expanding the idea that the social model is a tool for change for everybody”.
DW celebrated the work of disabled activists and campaigners as it marked its anniversary with the event at Cardiff City Stadium, which was also held online.
Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales, told the conference that, despite “very passionate campaigning” over 50 years, “we haven’t necessarily made the progress we would like to see”.
But she said that “things have moved forward and what has been so important is the way that as disabled people we have taken hold of the agenda to make things happen, because rights are never handed to us on a plate”.
Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, told the conference that it was a “huge privilege” to be able to celebrate DW’s anniversary, which he said was a “huge achievement”.
He said Disability Wales had been a “key partner” of the Welsh government and parliament through the years of devolved Welsh government, and he passed on his “enormous thanks and appreciation” for that work.
He said: “I want to reaffirm today the commitment of the Welsh government… to the social model of disability and to the ongoing efforts that have to be made… to spreading an understanding of what we mean by the social model and not just an understanding of it but that we make that additional effort to ensure that from understanding comes real action that makes a difference.”
He stressed the importance of co-production of policy with disabled people.
He said: “People are experts in their own lives. They know how things can work and not work in a way that the person providing the service, who will have very important expertise of their own, will not know.
“And the way in which you get the best outcomes for people is when you combine those different sets of expertise in a relationship of equals, in which both parties recognise the vital importance of what the other person is also contributing.”
Disabled campaigner Andrea Gordon had earlier told the conference: “Where we are now is both exciting and has the potential for huge change, but we need to keep our foot firmly on the pedal.”
She said the Welsh government’s social model commitment and its new Disability Rights Taskforce, set up to address the inequalities exposed by the Locked Out report into the impact of the pandemic on disabled people in Wales, were “fantastic and exciting” but “won’t mean anything unless it changes the lives of disabled people”.
She said: “It won’t mean anything at all unless we can see it delivering change in everyday life and everyday policy and practice and actually what happens to us as disabled people when we go out and about.”
She added: “I am really worried that we are on the road to rights, we are still on the road, but it’s definitely going uphill, it’s definitely a climb now.”
She said she believed disabled people’s “real, enforceable civil rights” were now “falling away”, with people “struggling to live that life that we have a right to live”.
She said: “I am really keen that we keep the pressure on, that we recognise that the Welsh government is committed to that, but I will only believe it when I see that happening.
“Talk is easy, action is what will make the difference.”
A video was shown to the conference in which Davies describes the origins of Disability Wales as Wales Council for the Disabled (WCD), which was set up in 1972 as a new national umbrella body, with funding from the Welsh Office.
Its campaigning often focused in the 1980s on access to the built environment, and in the 1990s it frequently promoted disability equality training and worked with disabled people to set up disabled people’s organisations and centres for independent living in Wales.
It was also closely involved in the Rights Now campaign for fully enforceable and comprehensive civil rights legislation.
In 1994, WCD voted to change its name to Disability Wales, and in 2003, two years after Davies became chief executive, it formally adopted the social model of disability and new rules that meant all its board members had to identify as disabled people.
After the election of the first Welsh government in 1999, Davies says in the video, “there was greater opportunity to influence these policies that had been devolved to Wales”, and to engage directly with ministers and elected members.
Disability Wales influenced the government to introduce what became a framework for action on independent living, which Davies says was underpinned by the social model and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
In the 2010s, key developments included DW’s involvement in the disabled-led DRILL research programme into barriers to independent living.
This “built the capacity of DPOs to develop research skills and work co-productively with universities”, which led to DW’s recent involvement in the Locked Out report.
It also lobbied successfully for the Welsh government to set up the Access to Elected Office Fund Wales, which now funds some of the extra costs faced by disabled people standing for elected office.
Davies says in the video: “It is an incredibly challenging time for disabled people as individuals but also for disabled people’s organisations, particularly those running at a grassroots level.
“We’ve had over 12 years of austerity, cuts to benefits and services, we’ve had the last two years of living under lockdown as a result of the pandemic, which has had a real impact on people’s lives.
“And now we’ve got the cost-of-living crisis, rising prices and rising energy prices, which is really going to affect disabled people who have already had so many cutbacks in their income.”
She adds: “We may not be locked away in long stay institutions anymore, but the hardship, the breaches of human rights that are going to be faced are going to have an equally restricting effect and devastating effects on people’s lives and wellbeing.
“It is a very challenging landscape.”
*Disability Wales is a Disability News Service subscriber
20 October 2022
Draft mental health bill is ‘starting from the wrong position’, activist tells MPs and peers
A disabled activist has told MPs and peers that the government’s draft mental health bill is “starting from the wrong position” and needs to focus instead on supporting people with mental distress to live in the community.
Simone Aspis, manager of Inclusion London’s new Free Our People Now project, repeatedly told parliamentarians of the importance of looking at mental health legislation from the perspective of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
She said the government should introduce a legal right to independent living, which would provide an “absolute right” to care and support in the community.
She said: “At the moment, the only way people with learning difficulties and autistic people get some kind of ‘state support’ is when they are detained under the Mental Health Act.”
She said there was no “corresponding absolute right” for disabled people to receive the support they need to live in the community.
Aspis was giving evidence to the joint committee on the draft mental health bill, which aims to reform the Mental Health Act 1983 in England and Wales.
She told the committee: “Often when people with learning difficulties and autistic people are coping well in the community, all of a sudden the support gets taken away from them, or reduces, so there seems to be no recognition whatsoever that disabled people actually need that support in order to maintain good wellbeing throughout their lives.
“There needs to be a clear understanding that the focus has to be on disabled people living in the community.”
She said the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities had concluded that the Mental Health Act does not treat people with learning difficulties and autistic people equally under the law because they can be detained under the act “just because they are disabled”.
She said: “The [UN committee] made a clear recommendation that the Mental Health Act needs to start from a point of no compulsory detention of disabled people and no compulsory treatments of disabled people.
“Our job is to find out how we can support people in a crisis before they go into hospital.
“Yes, there is going to be risk, but if crisis can happen within the community in more appropriate settings then actually there would be a lot less risk to individuals and people around them.”
She said the bill should “start from an alternative position” of what was needed to support disabled people with mental distress to live independently in the community and with the right support.
She said: “The problem we have got at the moment is that we keep starting from the wrong position: how do we make detainment more equitable, how do we make it more humane?
“I think we need to be focusing on a different question: what do we need to do to support disabled people to live in the community with the relevant support that they need?”
The draft bill is being examined in detail by the joint committee before the government publishes a final version.
Two disability charities, the National Autistic Society (NAS) and Mencap, and a not-for-profit organisation, the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi), also gave evidence to the committee.
All three said that they would like the draft bill to go ahead, with changes.
The draft bill includes measures that would mean autistic people and people with learning difficulties would not be able to be detained under the act unless they also had a diagnosed mental health condition, or they were being assessed for one.
Tim Nicholls, head of influencing and research at NAS, said: “We are in a situation at the moment where we are allowing the state to deprive people of their liberty because the state is not meeting their needs effectively in the community.”
He said that other changes need to be made but “we are in a crisis right now” with 2,000 autistic people and people with learning difficulties in inpatient units for far longer than they should be and “we have to do something now”.
He said he would like other parts of the bill to be strengthened and for the bill “not to be the last step” in reform.
Dan Scorer, head of policy, public affairs, information and advice at Mencap, said the draft bill was “far from perfect” and in many key areas it had “moved back significantly” from “quite positive, strong” positions that had been taken in last year’s white paper.
The white paper was itself built on recommendations made by Sir Simon Wessely’s independent review of the Mental Health Act in 2018, which was criticised for falling “significantly short” of recommending full human rights for people with mental distress.
But Scorer said the draft mental health bill provided an opportunity to “drive forward” progress on addressing the long-term detention of large numbers of autistic people and people with learning difficulties in inpatient mental health settings and “make vital changes that we hope can reinvigorate those ambitions which have not been delivered over the last decade”.
Gail Petty, NDTi’s advocacy manager, said: “I think this bill has made some real positive steps forward.
“There is scope for tightening in some particular areas, and strengthening some particular areas.”
But she said the bill should not be halted to wait for more “wholesale reform”.
20 October 2022
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
A group of senior MPs have backed calls for a public inquiry into “failings” in the benefit system. The Westminster leaders of the Liberal Democrats, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green party have demanded a public inquiry into deaths and serious harm linked to the Department for Work and Pensions. The MPs backed calls from Rethink Mental Illness, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and charities including Disability Rights UK, Liberty, Inquest and the MS Society: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/mps-demand-inquiry-benefits-failings-28233945
The provider of a luxury care home where an 88-year-old woman with dementia was abused is facing possible criminal action as a government minister said he was “shocked and saddened” at her mistreatment. After the Guardian published secret camera footage showing Ann King being abused at the £2,000-a-week Reigate Grange care home, operated by the luxury chain Signature Senior Lifestyle, the Care Quality Commission said on Friday it was “reviewing this evidence and working with other stakeholders to determine whether regulatory or criminal enforcement action is required”: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/14/uk-care-home-where-workers-abused-resident-may-face-criminal-action-ann-king
20 October 2022
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
